Of Men and Monsters
by Azovka
Summary: Fairy boons go wrong, sleep is for the weak, and madness is pervasive. While waiting on her Prince Charming, Aurora plays chess with Death, and learns the nature of reality.


In retrospect, she would do all of it again. And she would thoroughly enjoy the ride.

Now, let's start from the beginning, shall we. As with all typical tales, ours starts with a king, a castle, and a new-born daughter. To celebrate her long-awaited birth, invitations were sent, festivities were organized, and soon enough, commoners, nobles and creatures of unidentifiable species alike frolicked amidst the shiny city.

In a world where every other tree let alone animal or plant hummed with magic, it was inevitable that seven fairies would be among the guests of honour on that glorious day. Perhaps they recognized on sight the uniqueness of this baby. Perhaps they were slightly inebriated. Or perhaps they simply were in a generous mood. Whatever their reasons were, the facts remain that they granted boons to the little girl. Beauty, wit, grace, dance, song and music. And so, six gifts were wasted on rather menial qualities.

The king having forgotten that Hell has no fury like a fairy scorned, Death was offered as a present too. What of the last remaining fairy, might you ask? Common legend would have you believe that thanks to her efforts, the previous gift of death morphed into a far more preferable fate: a century of sleep and the promise of awakening at the hands of true love. Common legend couldn't be more wrong. Once Death is on the table, one cannot fold his cards and back down from the game. The last fairy, slightly less drunk than the others, took a moment to observe the child. She looked beyond her already apparent beauty and grace and wit, for even a newborn can be all those things if powerful magic is at hand, and saw what her shunned colleague had intuitively guessed. This child was like no other. A dark shadow hovered over her tiny frame even before those cursed words made the abstract but inevitable end into a tangible reality filled with spindles and needles and blood. Death was indeed a gift, if the fairy was correct on the girl's singular nature. Still, the fairy didn't have it in her to break the hearts of her parents. And so she offered a chance.

Needless to say, pun intended, that all spindles were immediately removed from the girl's vicinity, and the celebrations resumed, for any fate was better than Death in the eyes of the king.

* * *

Years flew by like pterodactyls in a rush. Aurora blossomed into a fine young woman while retaining and air of naive and childlike innocence. She danced and sang her way through life, and while she thought that gifts of flight or mind reading would have been infinitely preferable, music and merriment were deemed enough for a princess, and so she did her best to meet the requirements of a tiresome cliché. One summer day, while dancing and singing her way alone through the forest surrounding the city, she felt a presence watching her from the bushes. "Why, oh why did I have to drive the guards away with my singing and dancing!" she thought.

Indeed, her incessant antics ended up grating on the nerves of even the most seasoned guards, who left her now to her own devices in a potentially lethal environment. Of course, since her demise was predicted to come in the form of a needle, not that Aurora knew it, other ways of dying were excluded from the equation by her loving, if slightly candid, family. And so she found herself alone in the clearing with something. Survival instincts were not strong with this one, and so she approached the source of her anxiety.

What could have been a raging psychopath or hungry predator turned out to be a handsome prince. Of course, he could still be a closet rabid maniac, but at least he was cute. After singing a duet together, for this charming nobleman apparently indulged into her silly humdrum shenanigans, they parted ways.

* * *

Aurora liked to think. All things considered, she was bored and had too much time on her hands. While she played her part of noble young maiden well, that's all it was in the end - an elaborate act. She didn't mind that much though. All that was required was to smile and be pretty and courteous, and it made her parents happy. Still, she sometimes despaired at how flat and two-dimensional her portrayal would be should her story be recorded for posterity. A silly little bird, and a silly little wife, that's all she would be remembered as. Yet it was what her role required, and she didn't want to disappoint her public.

Of course, boundaries between the actor and the character being blurred at the very best, she found herself more often than not tuning out the voice that screamed, "caution, it's a trap!" in her head, and acted upon sheer curiosity. And so, one morning, while lollygagging, she found herself on the highest floor in a previously unexplored wing of the castle, facing a door. Although regular in appearance, Aurora felt for some reason that there was more to it than met the eye. It was as if there was a huge sign on it that read in big scarlet letters "Destiny here". And so she turned the knob and met her fate.

* * *

"In hindsight, it was probably a bad idea to leave the door unlocked," thought the king between moments of uncontrollable wails over his daughter's inert body. In hindsight, it was also silly to keep a spindle there when it was almost set in stone that she would die from it. But the queen just had to indulge in her womanly desire to spin threads and do embroidery, and what could he do in the face of her persistent demands but to concede. Aurora seemed to be still breathing though, which was a good thing. After sobbing for a few more minutes, the king collected himself and thought pragmatically about this whole mess. Gertrude the fairy never explained what she meant by chance, and so he had assumed that it would be some sort of loophole or way out. Aurora had to wake up at some point, didn't she?

A vague plan was then elaborated. Thankfully, the king had built a castle far away in the middle of nowhere, just for that sort of eventuality. Surrounded by a deadly obstacle course, with brambles and trees and dragons and any kind of thing that would require heroic qualities to overcome, there was no better place for his daughter's body. Well, that wasn't entirely true. There were many more welcoming places where he could put her, but the construction of the chateau wasn't exactly cheap, not to mention hiring the landscape designers to optimize the surroundings, bribing the monsters with treasure... He had to have a return on his investment somehow.

It was settled then. Aurora was placed in a glass coffin in the main chamber, messengers were sent forth across all ten kingdoms, and posters were hung in the marketplaces. Challenges and battles, heroics and fame, and a beautiful young maiden to boot were on the agenda. Of course, the entrance to the domain wasn't free. No reason why the king couldn't make some profit from it, after all.

* * *

Aurora was falling. That was not exactly true. She simply had no other words to describe the sensation of her mind being separated from her body. Was that what dying felt like, she wondered? If so, death by needle prick was fitting she supposed, just as silly as her life at least. In a way, she always knew it was coming. Aurora… Even her name meant transience, for what is dawn but a few fleeting moments of beauty at the end of things at any rate. So there she was, falling through a rabbit hole, bracing herself for impact just in case. And then she wasn't.

Aurora was flung back into consciousness by the sound of approaching footsteps. After opening her eyes, she dismissed the idea of footsteps for there was seemingly no floor for the feet to step on or room for the steps to echo in. Yet someone was fast approaching her fallen form. She stood up and faced the stranger warily, lamenting her lack of martial skills. He bore an uncanny resemblance to the charming prince she met in the forest the previous week, and yet he seemed somehow different. It was probably the clothes. The black attire really didn't do any good to his complexion. He tilted his head.

"Have you ever danced with the devil in the pale moonlight?" Of all the conversation starters Aurora could think, that most certainly wasn't on the list. "I beg your pardon", she replied. "I ask that of all my victims, I simply like the sound of it". Oh well, so he was an unstable maniac after all. Lesson learned: do not randomly burst into songs with strange men in a forest in spite of all their attractiveness.

Aurora took a moment to reflect on her situation. She was standing in what could only be space, if the twinkling stars and occasional planet orbiting afar were any indication, with a potential affably evil psycho, slightly less handsome now that he was bathed in starlight. She was probably dead. Or she could be having one of those out-of-consciousness experiences. Come to think of it, she could have been hit on the head while examining the spindle and kidnapped by that guy. He did stalk her before, following her home and kidnapping her wouldn't be too farfetched. Still, that didn't explain how they found themselves in space. At least she wasn't falling anymore.

* * *

"Well Toto, looks like we're not in Kansas anymore." Aurora didn't really know who Toto or Kansas were, but her mind supplied the script, and so she rolled with it. It couldn't possibly make the situation anymore ridiculous after all. The Not So Charming Prince made a vague gesture of acquiescence. "Where are we?" she asked. His mouth twisted in a bitter smile that held little happiness. "Somewhere ubiquitous. I did not think you would take kindly to staring into the abyss, not right away at any rate, so I made it look like something else." A pause ensued. "Are you not going to ask me my name or what nefarious intentions can I possibly have towards your person?" He finally enquired. Aurora frowned. She had already labelled him as a Prince Charming psycho copycat in her mind. Thus no real need for such line of questioning. Still, she humoured him and asked away.

Turned out he called himself Death, destroyer of worlds. Either he had serious delusions of grandeur, or she was indeed dead from a needle prick, just as she strongly suspected. He also wanted to play chess. If that were a chance to win back her soul, Aurora would probably remain dead for she sucked really badly at games of strategy. Still she humoured him again.

At that point, an empty café popped up not far away, right next to Ursa Minor. Death, destroyer of worlds, also known as Prince Charming when he ventured into the world to seduce maidens with fancy songs, made some tea and sat at one of the tables. Aurora faltered. The furniture was made of human body parts sewn roughly together. The arms of her armchair were still dripping with blood. The prince was looking at her expectantly now. Prince, death... Whatever his name was, he looked quite royal lounging in his throne of flesh and bones. A God emperor looking down on his kingdom of dust. Swallowing her bile, Aurora sat at the very edge of the armchair, careful not to touch anything unnecessarily, and faced the game board.

Why did it have to be chess? Why not Jenga? Or Go Fish for that matter? He made his opening move. "Aren't white ones supposed to go first?" She asked, already resigned to losing the game and her life in the process. It was also the first time she saw an opening move with a rook, but ultimately decided against mentioning it. "I cheat" was his response. It only got better afterwards.

* * *

Time passed. Blood spatters were visible on the ivory tiles. A growing pile of little corpses stood next to the board. Aurora dimly remembered crying when she lost her first pawn. Why did they have to be shaped like children? According to Death, they were actual humans. Their screams and dying gurgles were realistic enough, she supposed. She lost count of how many games they played, and how many crushing defeats she suffered. "That's it. Farewell and thanks for the memories, I guess," she thought after the first one, watching her king lying sundered, headless, and bleeding. Her king was a birch tree, the symbol of Leto, her father's kingdom. She didn't know trees could bleed, but this one did. Ready to face the music, she tried thinking of a significant statement to utter in her last breath, but came up with nothing. "Best to three", he offered then with a smile. Three became five, then ten, and the number of games played grew exponentially. "How long have I been there?" She wondered as she numbly watched a knight being unsaddled and trampled.

She was a queen in every single game they played. Surely she intended to be the most powerful piece in her game was the explanation Death offered. She saw her avatar kill children, burn castles and strangle bishops. She was also brutally murdered in a number of ways, several of which she had never even heard of before, let alone seen. Disgust and revulsion had long since passed. It didn't really matter anymore. She remembered asking why he was a king then. Apparently he played differently from her. Was she ready to sacrifice everything to ensure her own survival? Her parents, soldiers, random farmers and kids, and even her kingdom in all its tragic tree-like glory. The answer was a resounding "no", and so she remained expendable.

And thus they waged a war by proxy in an abandoned café in the middle of the galaxy. Occasionally, she saw a star die. Red giants and supernovas exploding and releasing large amounts of energy that shook the rotting human legs of their game table. And then there was nothing. Death and her, sitting at their table with the red and white parasol, and the universe staring back. They reached the end. Infinity and eternity stretching out before them, they floated about in the abyss that is past the end of reality and continued their games.

* * *

She had learned several things about her opponent in the process. First, he wasn't a man of many words, contrary to what his first appearance singing "Once upon a dream" had suggested. He wasn't even a man altogether. As he tried to explain during an intermission, waving his hands around awkwardly to emphasize his point, he was a concept, an anthropomorphic idea at best. He seemed fairly human to Aurora though, so they dropped the subject.

He liked apples. It was fitting, she mused. Of course, the apple was never explicitly mentioned in the Genesis, and yet it was heavy with symbolism, just like a great many things since she fell in that dimension. "Did you know that Gods of Death love apples?" he asked with a crooked smile. Well now she did. He had quite an imagination as well, if the gruesome and twisted deaths of her chess pieces were anything to judge by.

Chess didn't seem like the right word anymore for the game they were playing. There were three armies now on the board – her white regiment pitted against his black legion, while some multi-coloured chaos worshippers hid underneath the squares and attacked both armies indiscriminately from the bowels. Weapons were upgraded too. Death cashed in his winnings and bought some catapults and crossbows.

"For long-range attacks," he it seemed quite ludicrous to her since they were currently alone in between dimensions, everywhere and nowhere at once, he decided that the currency would be dead bodies and willed a bank into existence. Tired of having her child foot soldiers crushed by flaming bodies that rained from the skies, she followed suit.

At some point, her troops intercepted a coded missive from the enemy. There were moles in both armies, and thus purges began. Chaos deserters joined the now cleansed and thinner ranks, only to betray them at every turn. One particular chaotic devil, or she thought it was a devil (an incubus maybe?) really outdid himself by being a sextuple traitor in a three-way battle. At any rate, when Death threatened to use Tesla's death ray on her dinosaur-breeding farm, located on the outskirts of the town on the square G2, Aurora put a stop to that madness.

"That's it, I'm done. Who won?"

"Casino rule number one: the House always wins".

"Weren't we playing chess? And what is a casino?" For some reason, almost instinctively, Aurora felt she knew what it was, though she still was compelled to ask. She remembered a great deal by now, half-forgotten memories whispering in her ears of distant pasts and uncertain futures. By all means, she wasn't supposed to know these things. And yet she did. From the burning sands of Arrakis to the bloody tidal wave that was Oda Nobunaga's unification of Japan. Some experiences fell outside her realm of understanding. She had only indulged in games of chess with Death, and somewhere along the road, she saw through the fabric of reality. The universe seemingly whole, just like matter, was riddled with holes. It was strangely beautiful.

"It is chess if I choose to call it such. Let's not quibble over semantics."

Aurora tore her gaze away from the board; away from the carnage and destruction in which she partook with all the self-righteous fury and indignation she could muster at first, with certain nonchalance then. She looked at her surroundings, slightly dazed.

"Did the universe just end?"

"You would have to be more specific. Which universe are you talking about?"

"There are several of them?"

"An infinite number, I believe. What you see now are only memories. My memories. Hell is not made of fire and brimstone. Hell is not the others, as a playwright would like you to believe. Hell is this. A place without time, without space, without change. Only your thoughts, and memories, and emotions, and the emptiness around you."

"That sounds dreadful."

"It was."

It was a given that Aurora should feel pity for him after this remark. And yet she didn't. Indifference and a touch of distaste towards the man, not man – Death, who casually ordered the slaughter of her family and kingdom over and over again until she couldn't care any longer.

"Am I dead?"

"No."

"What is it then?"

"A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte?"

"I want the truth."

"You can't handle the truth."

"How do I leave this place?"

"Tiring of my company so soon? Too bad, nobody is ever out of the woods."

"There are no woods."

Death glared at her. "At your christening, you were granted the gift of Death, among other things. But then, your fairy godmother had to meddle and change your fate. By all means and for all purposes, that spindle should have killed you. And yet here we are."

"In a ubiquitous place?"

"That's right. Your subconscious runs deep."

"Wait, we're inside my mind?"

Death made a noise of agreement. "Yes. Your madness is pervasive."

"How come you know so much then?"

"Magic. Looking for a way out of your predicament with spindles and death was roughly the equivalent of trying to swat a fly with a sledgehammer. It often results in a mess."

"So I'm trapped in my own mind with dead men and monsters. That's nice. How do I get out?"

"You can't. It has to be done from the outside."

"So I need to be saved? Great. Now I really fulfil all the requirements of a damsel in distress."

Death laughed.

"How much time has passed? In the real world, I mean."

"I am merely a manifestation of your subconscious. I do not hold all the answers."

"Oh."

Aurora and Death, who wasn't really the destroyer of words, were looking at each other from across the table, and so many things were left unsaid.

* * *

Then she stood up and walked away into the looming abyss. It was her mind. She ought to be in control. Death didn't move from his seat. She must have willed him into existence somehow. Maybe she could do it again. Closing her eyes in concentration and raising her fingers for a dramatic effect, Aurora jabbed at the fabric of the universe. A rumbling noise was heard. In her head, she could picture the hybrid face of time and space, and all that's in between; dimensions twisting and turning amidst the whims of one foreseen…

When she opened her eyes, the cogs of the great machine that was reality had spun, and she was greeted with a different landscape altogether. Gone were the stretching emptiness, the parasol and the café. A gothic graveyard under a monochromatic red sky replaced them. The ground was littered with bones.

"Was my mind always so gloomy?" she despaired. Death was standing next to her though. Aurora felt strangely content. At least, he was familiar. He nudged her towards a shabby direction sign that read "Tulgey woods".

"What about it?" she asked. "We could explore", he offered. And so they did.

* * *

Back in the glorious kingdom of Leto, time passed by like a lazy river on a sunny afternoon. Princes and even a few shield-maidens tried their luck at the deadly maze that lay outside of the not-so-dead Aurora's gilded cage. Finally, Prince Charming came, saw, and conquered. Entire epic ballads were later dedicated to his exploits. Some retellings glossed over less than stellar battles, but facts remain that he made it to the castle in one piece. History remembers him as the epitome of nobility and heroism. While not entirely incorrect per se, Prince, which was his given name, was still prone to such human sentiments as greed and impatience.

He paced in front of the glass coffin for an hour, lamenting the fact that the king had "forgotten" to specify the state the princess would be in on the advertisement brochures distributed across the land. He vaguely remembered meeting this girl while hunting a while back and indulging in her silly songs. She was very pretty and gracious and nice though. She would make for a good queen. And let's not forget the treasure promised by her father. While Prince Charming was a prince (his parents, lacking imagination, named him after his title), and had thus gold and estates befitting his station, one could never be too rich. Especially with the rapid deflation and the uncertain future of the mining economy, where most of the assets of the mountainous kingdoms were held. Damn those dwarfs and their strikes! Anyways, after pacing back and forth for a few more minutes, he finally had the great and absolutely not disturbing idea to kiss an unconscious Aurora.

* * *

Aurora and Death had seen many things, building and destroying nations on a whim. Lately, Death had taken upon himself the duty to show to Aurora what she could have been. And by that, he meant all the endless possibilities that stretched around her, all the "what ifs," if you will, the roads not taken, "for want of a nail" situations. And so she rose from the agony that pierced her mind, rose from the stigmas of enigmas she designed.

She had been a pauper and a soldier, a nameless orphan and a ruthless ruler, she had seen dull and grey universes without magic, wastelands where all screamed for naught, and heavenly gardens. She had climbed to the peaks of Elburz and Mont Blanc, and from there, she saw the sun rise and had watched it in the evening flood the sky, the ocean, and the mountain-tops with gold and crimson. She saw from there the lightning flashing over her head and cleaving the storm-clouds. She had seen green forests, fields, rivers, lakes, towns. She had heard the singing of the sirens, and the strains of the shepherds' pipes; she had touched the wings of comely devils who flew down to converse with her of God… She had flung herself into the bottomless pit, performed miracles, slain, burned towns, preached new religions, conquered whole kingdoms… And Death walked in her shadow in every world.

* * *

Aurora and Death were lounging in the cemetery of bones. Ants were on a pilgrimage to Kumano across the red and white squares of their picnic blanket. Around them, exotic trees and flowers of every shape and colour could now be seen among the stone angels, and the shattered spines and femurs that made up the ground. Earth burned bright in the monochromatic sky. Seeing Death still wearing his blood-drenched armour from her last fairly unpleasant life, she wrinkled her nose. Humans could really be cruel sacks of meat sometimes. Still, overall, it was a fairly idyllic moment.

They saw the last light flicker out on Earth, again. The last humans had long since moved elsewhere in this reality, as in many others. Suddenly, a commotion was heard. Aurora looked quizzically at her friend (funny how loneliness got to her that an insane and rather apathetic murderer who styled himself Death gradually became more than a forced acquaintance). He wasn't even real, at the end of all things, and yet she cared about him. He was familiar.

"Looks like it's from the outside." He smiled bitterly. "Reality calls."

"I don't want to go."

"Why not? This is only an illusion. A wonderful, pretty one, but a deception nonetheless."

"But I'm a part of it. It feels real to me. I live, I burn with life, I love, I slay, I build, and I am content," she whispered.

And then there was bright light.

* * *

Aurora awoke quite disoriented to the feeling of a stranger's lips and breath upon her. "Oh God, I am being molested" was her first thought, and so she trashed and punched and kicked her unknown assailant.

Prince Charming backed away in shock. Weren't princesses supposed to awake with a gracious yawn and smile bleary-eyed at their saviour, and promise him undying love and devotion? Trust Prince to get the feisty one. Oh well, at least it worked. The girl was looking at him now. "Death?" she called out. "Uh, no. Charming. Prince Charming actually. We met in a forest some time ago."

It wasn't him. Aurora could see it now. Prince was more handsome and strong. Wielding the sword of Truth in one hand and the shield of Virtue in the other, he looked every bit like a hero straight out of a storybook. Unfortunately for him, Aurora preferred tragic and bloody tales of violence and monsters. Still, she let herself be carried away in the sunset on a white stallion, true to her role of damsel in distress. Soon, their betrothal was announced and celebrations were organized. Aurora sat through all of it numbly. She was broken. Worse, she was aware of it. After all the mind-blowing things she lived through, reality simply could not compare. Death was a gift after all. There were fates worse than that.

She was a new-born goddamit. She didn't ask to be stuck for a ceaseless time in limbo with a likeable madman. She didn't want to enjoy it. Or to be slammed in the head with a metallic sign that said "Reality" in bold letters afterwards. She didn't want any of it, and yet there she was.

Strangely enough, she didn't snap. She didn't want to trouble her parents like this. She cried when she saw them again. After losing them over and over again in chimerical chess games so long ago, she didn't think she had it in her to care. But she did.

A little bird so eager to please. That's all she was again.

* * *

Aurora didn't wait till her marriage. She had climbed from the prison that she built in her soul before, when she walked away from the game with Death. History has a funny habit of repeating itself, and so she did it all over again. When the night arose, her legend was whole.

A maid found a note pinned to the wall with an antique comb in her bedroom.

"Dear fairies, anyone else who meddled in my fate, and anyone who's willing to listen with an open mind really,

Your gifts have given me wisdom. All that unresting thought that Man created in the ages is now compressed into a small compass in my brain. I know now that I am wiser than all of you.

And I despise you. I despise wisdom and the blessings of this world. It is all worthless, fleeting, illusory, and deceptive, like a mirage. You may be proud, you may be strong and fine, but death will wipe you off the face of the earth as though you were no more than mice burrowing under the floor, and your posterity, your history, your immortal heroes will burn or freeze together with the earthly globe.

You have lost your reason and taken the wrong path. You have taken lies for truth, hideousness for beauty. You would marvel, if owing to an evil genius of some sorts, frogs and lizards suddenly grew on apple and orange trees instead of fruit, or if roses began to smell like sweating goats. So I marvel at you who exchange heaven for earth. I don't want to understand you.

To prove to you in action how I despise all that you live by, I renounce my birth right, and my inheritance, and my titles, and the life I once dreamed of as paradise and which I now despise. To deprive myself of all of these rights, I shall be out of here in just a few moments.

So long and thanks for all the fish."


End file.
